As typical methods for producing planar lipid-bilayer membranes used in analysis of membrane proteins such as ion channels, painting method and Langmuir-Blodgett method (LB method) are conventionally known. Both methods are of forming a planar lipid-bilayer membrane in an aperture opened in a Teflon (registered trademark) sheet in a chamber filled with a buffer solution. The aperture has a size of several-hundred microns. In the painting method, a lipid solution is applied to the aperture with a brush. The LB method utilizes the fact that a monomolecular layer of a lipid molecule is formed on the surface of a solution. In this method, a planar lipid-bilayer membrane is formed by gradually raising the solution surface level at both sides of a Teflon (registered trademark) sheet in a chamber.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing a method of forming a planar lipid-bilayer membrane by the LB method.
In the drawing, a reference numeral 1 denotes a Teflon (registered trademark) sheet, a reference numeral 2 denotes an aperture formed in the Teflon (registered trademark) sheet 1, a reference numeral 3 denotes a solution on the surface of which a monomolecular layer 4 of lipid is formed, and a reference numeral 5 denotes a buffer solution. A planar lipid-bilayer membrane 6 is formed by gradually raising the surface level of the solution 3 at both sides of the Teflon (registered trademark) sheet 1 in a chamber.    Patent Document 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 02-35941    Patent Document 2: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 05-253467    Patent Document 3: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 07-241512    Patent Document 4: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-505007    Patent Document 5: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-511679    Patent Document 6: Japanese Patent Application No. 2003-329667    Non-Patent Document 1: H. Zhu, et al., “Global Analysis of Protein Activities Using Proteome Chips”, Science, Vol. 293, pp. 2101-2105, 2001.    Non-Patent Document 2: B. Alberts, et al., “Molecular Biology of the Cell; 4th Ed.”, Garland Science, 2002.    Non-Patent Document 3: C. Miller, ed., “Ion Channel Reconstitution”, Plenum Press, 1986.    Non-Patent Document 4: T. Ide and T. Yanagida, “An Artificial Lipid Bilayer Formed on an Agarose-Coated Glass for Simultaneous Electrical and Optical Measurement of Single Ion Channels,” Biochem. Biophys. Res. Comm., 265, pp. 595-599, 1999.    Non-Patent Document 5: T. Ide, Y. Takeuchi, and T. Yanagida, “Development of an Experimental Apparatus for Simultaneous Observation of Optical and Electrical Signals from Single Ion Channels,” Single Molecules, 3(1), pp. 33-42, 2002.    Non-Patent Document 6: J. T. Groves, N. Ulman, and S. G. Boxer, “Micropatterning Fluid Lipid Bilayers on Solid Supports,” Science, Vol. 275, pp. 651-653.    Non-Patent Document 7: M. Mayer, et al., “Microfabricated Teflon Membranes for Low-Noise Recording of Ion Channels in Planar Lipid Bilayers,” Biophys. J., Vol. 85, pp. 2684-2695, 2003.    Non-Patent Document 8: Fertig et al., “Microstructured Glass Chip for Ion-Channel Electrophysiology,” Phys. Rev. E., Vol. 64, 040901(R), 2001.    Non-Patent Document 9: H. Suzuki, H. Noji, S. Takeuchi, SEIBUTSU BUTSURI (Biophysics), Vol. 43, SUPPLEMENT 1, p. S118, B374, August 2003